Tanishq Babel ’20 – Published Artist

Despite balancing an incredibly difficult schedule that includes 6 A.P. courses, Tanishq Babel ’20 manages to always find time for his creative expression. That effort has paid off as he will soon be a twice published artist. His piece, He or She?, will soon be published in Creative Art magazine. Continue reading to learn more about this piece in particular and Babel’s art in general.

What inspired this piece? The art pieces that I am working on consist of the various dilemmas of Indian women: their acquaintance with domestic violence and their unconscious internalization of oppression. In this specific piece, I portray a pregnant woman with stripes of blue and pink flowers in the background. This prismacolor drawing is meant to suggest the burden women bear in the Indian society where the focus of the entire pregnancy is whether or not the mother is going to have a male offspring. I chose to use flowers in this piece to suggest how beautiful the time of pregnancy can be in a woman’s life. Most of my artwork in my current portfolio in A.P. Art is meant to suggest a message designed to inspire thoughts about the role gender bias plays in the most intimate elements of women’s lives.

How long have you been working on this piece? I sketched this piece in December of sophomore year. However, I put it aside for more than a year because I did not get time to come back to the piece. However, this summer, I was able to consolidate my ideas for how I wanted the piece to turn out and eventually finished it. I would say that the total amount of time this piece took was around three weeks.

What was the process of getting published? This is actually the second time I got my artwork published in the magazine by Celebrating Art. First, we are to submit a piece into their contest. Then, they choose works that they would like to publish in their magazine. The message that I received from them was: “This is an honor, as most students are not invited to be published. This publication brings together the best student artists in the U.S.” In addition to getting the chance to have your work published, they also choose “High Merit Artists” and the “Top Ten Artists.” I will get these results for these categories next month.

How do you feel about being published? This makes me feel really content and proud, as this allows me to present my talent to many people, and it also gives me a platform to spread the deep messages that are embedded in my art.

How do you see art playing a part in your life moving forward? I am [planning on] pursuing a form of art in college: I want to double major in animation and direction. I also aspire to continue to spread the message of the negative and detrimental effects of patriarchy in our society through my work.

Anything else you’d like to say about this work, art at Moreau, your artistic journey, etc.? One last thing I would like to say is that this tremendous and transformational journey of mine would not have been possible without the guidance and teachings of Ms. Thomas. This definitely would not have been possible without [her] guidance. She is a phenomenal teacher. Ms. Thomas’s teachings have been really valuable to me and they have contributed a lot to make me the person and artist I am today.